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Episode 366: Brent Bowen, HomegrownB_DUB

PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago31 min listen
From the creator

Brent Bowen streams on Twitch by night, but during the day he is an award winning visual FX artist and CGI supervisor on The Simpsons. He'll explain how pinball machines are more interesting than...

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Highlights

  • Brent Bowen worked on The Simpsons movie, including the crowd scene that required so much rendering it caused a power outage at the studio
  • Brent was brought on to The Simpsons production after submitting a pencil test with a baby shoe in the envelope with a note 'I'm just trying to get my foot in the door'
  • Jack Danger significantly elevated Brent's pinball play through streaming, teaching, and interactive engagement during 2020-2021
  • Brent has a Simpsons Pinball Party machine that he refuses to sell and plays for the story/modes rather than competitive stacking strategies
  • Brent purchased Goldeneye (007) pinball in 2004 for $900 and received unpaid internship training from a local tech who spent 4+ hours teaching him machine maintenance
  • The IFPA has over 100,000 unique players in its competitive pinball history
  • Jack Danger allowed his animation team to use whatever medium they wanted (After Effects, paper scanned in, etc.) for Foo Fighters pinball animations
  • Brent scored 7 billion points on a Deadpool pinball machine and posted it to YouTube
  • Current LCD/screen technology in pinball mostly features film clips or concert footage rather than original CGI content created for the theme
  • Kevin Van Hook, director at Forum Visual Effects, was a seven-movie deal filmmaker with SyFy and also a comic book artist for DC Comics

Notable quotes

“I'm just trying to get my foot in the door.”
Brent Bowen
“No one ball is going to ever be the same. It's never going to be the same. Maybe it is, but I'd never notice it. And that's what I loved about it... It's you versus gravity, right? In physics, it's fresh every time you plunge.”
Brent Bowen
“In an uncontrollable world, when I turn on this game, I'm home. It's my meditation.”
Brent Bowen
“You're the smartest customer I've ever had... I can't tell you how many times I've got paid $200 to put in a AA battery.”
Local tech in L.A.
“They lit up the whole thing and we put the power out at the studio from all the computers rendering that scene.”
Brent Bowen
“He's doing it. You know, he's doing it. And, yeah, I hope to be a part of that one day for sure.”
Brent Bowen
“You've got the resume, no question about it... you've got the talent, and hopefully maybe that can lead into something.”
Jeff Teolis
“I don't know. I'm so competitive and weird that way. But that could work. I need to just try.”
Brent Bowen

Entities

  • Deadflip· company
  • Forum Visual Effects· company
  • Spooky Pinball· company
  • Northwest Pinball Show· event
  • Texas Pinball Festival· event
  • Deadpool· game
  • Foo Fighters· game
  • Goldeneye (007)· game
  • Jurassic Park· game
  • Simpsons Pinball Party· game
  • Icebox· location
  • Washington State pinball community· location/community
  • The Simpsons· media
  • IFPA· organization
  • HomegrownB_DUB· organization/stream
  • Brent Bowen· person
  • Jack Danger· person
  • Jeff Teolis· person
  • Kevin Van Hook· person
  • Pinside· website/community

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